


Fireworks

by Cymbidia, piglet_illustrations (thefilthiestpiglet)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Infiltration, M/M, MCU Kink Bang, Object Insertion, Sounding, it is hydra it is trash and it is a party, it's lit, misuse of sparklers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 15:31:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14240334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cymbidia/pseuds/Cymbidia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefilthiestpiglet/pseuds/piglet_illustrations
Summary: Bucky pretends to be brainwashed in order to rescue Steve from HYDRA. His entrance interrupts the birthday party that the HYDRA agents are throwing Steve. A bad time is had by all, but especially by Steve.





	Fireworks

**Author's Note:**

> My fill for the lovely [thefilthiestpiglet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefilthiestpiglet) for the MCU Kink Bang! I really loved the art and I'm glad I could write something that hopefully lives up to it a little. I had, oh, the worst two months around check-ins time and I almost dropped out, but I'm very glad I didn't because I super loved the art and it pushed me to write about some stuff I don't usually write about.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/141141476@N02/27419958958)

In a journal with fuzzy pink covers there exists a list which attempted to define the various iterations of James Buchanan Barnes. For Bucky Barnes, it had listed “ _charming, good dancer, active libido, enjoys peppermint_.” For The Winter Soldier it was simply _“Obedient. Good Killer._ ” For whoever it was that he was now, there was simply “ _a person._ ”

James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes - whoever that was, besides just “a person.” - had drafted it at the advice of Natasha Romanova, who was not so much his unpaid therapist as his instructor in constructing a reasonably well adjusted cover to inhabit. Bucky - if that was his name - still was not very good at performing personhood, despite the time he had spent practicing whilst lying low in Romania.

Bucky was quickly coming to find that he had left out many important things in his list. The smoky burnt scent of gunpowder reminded him that James Buchanan Barnes used to love fireworks, especially on Fourth of July, and that the Winter Soldier had never had cause to experience fireworks firsthand, and that he, the current incarnation, found the scent unpleasant and upsetting by dint of having been both Bucky Barnes, a soldier, and The Asset, the soldier. The sound of explosions made him flinch and his heart rate skyrocket, of course, but there was also something about the smell that upset him more, bitter and caustic and burnt. It was a far cry from when he and Steve used to climb out onto the fire escape and admire all the fireworks being set off for Steve’s birthday.

It was strange how strongly he felt the nausea from the smell. There were other, more distressing things that might have been turning his stomach, but it was the smell of distant fireworks that made him swallow against the bile in his throat. The leather and kevlar of his old uniform was familiar to the touch, the press of the many and various weapons strapped to his person comfortingly routine. Strapping himself into the persona of the Soldier was not so different from arming himself for a sojourn to the market or suiting up for a mission with Steve.

Bucky studied the mask in his hand thoughtfully, then pulled it on. The filters in the mask instantly went to work, and the scent of smoke and gunpowder was siphoned away and left behind only gut churning nausea and a familiar scent of chemical sterility. Bucky tightened the strap behind his head.

He had bulked up since he’d escaped HYDRA. The nutrient solutions had powered him well enough for short-term missions, but cryo was hell on muscle mass. His hair had gotten longer, and now he was grateful that he chose not to get it trimmed or restyled. His split ends were atrocious, but that was to be expected of hair that had been growing for seventy odd years. There were more wrinkles around his eyes, and a few stray gray hairs had appeared. He was undeniably older and healthier than HYDRA’s prized asset had ever been allowed to become.

The base was an old one. Yellow and red tape cordoned off doors and windows, but at the main entrance the tape had been ripped off. The base had been in the Insight files, but by the simple and sinister process of bureaucratic neglect, it had been combed over once and forgotten about entirely, stripped of information and weapons and little else. Once Bucky found a place to park his getaway vehicle he approached the front entrance and studied the door thoughtfully behind his mask and goggles.

The door was open, and the hallway dark, but Bucky did not go in right away. He huffed out a slow, steadying breath, and dived into the abyss of calm that he had been running from every since he had escaped HYDRA. There was a comfort in certainty. His mouth was dry and his heart was climbing up his throat as it beat like the frantic footfall of a frightened animal. But that was all so distant now. Fear was only a function of the body. It was in his mouth and in his chest and tingling and squirming in his limbs, but it did not touch the abyss of his mind. That was what it meant to be the Winter Soldier. The body was vulnerable and afraid, but the mind had been hollowed out and filled with certainty and steel. The fear did not matter.

There was a certain way the Soldier moved. It was not precisely efficient, but it was straightforward. The shortest path, not the one of least resistance. Bucky flipped open the cover of the keypad lock and entered a thirteen digit number. A green LED sparked to light above the number pad for a brief moment, then went out. Yes, the base was certainly the correct one.

Bucky walked through the door without hesitation. He blew through the hallways carelessly, as if he was certain of his welcome. The knowledge of the layout was instinctual, and it wasn’t until Bucky was half way up the third set of stairs that he recalled any of his episodic memories about this place. He did not pause and did not flinch, but the thumping of his heart got louder, and he swallowed silently behind his mask. But the Soldier would not remember those things. The Soldier had been wiped clean before he last left this facility, safe in a shipping container. The Soldier would not be any more terrified than he always was.

Bucky approached a seemingly blank stretch of wall, and tapped out a passcode against the wall. There was a long moment without response. Bucky stood in front of the wall, willing himself not to fidget or move. The Soldier could stand at attention for days on end if need be. The Soldier did not inhabit his body fully enough to understand the urge to fidget.

A voice came through the wall after a moment. “Why are you here?” it said, sounding frightened.

“Winter Soldier reporting in for debrief and containment,” Bucky said blankly. The Soldier flinched away from the word containment, but he did not always remember what that was. Bucky knew it all too well, but he also knew that they had the facilities to contain him.

There was some commotion on the other side of the wall. Bucky ignored the other kind of terror threatening to push into his mind. If they panicked and moved Steve elsewhere, this whole deception would be for naught.

The seconds ticked by. Bucky ignored the bead of sweat descending at a snail’s pace down his face. He ignored the scent of fireworks that had become detectable even through the mask. The sound of explosions in the near distance was harder to ignore, but Bucky was more concerned with the commotion on the other side of the wall.

After several long minutes, Bucky heard the shouting and the panic die down to unintelligible murmurs. There was the sound of many locking mechanisms shifting, and the hidden door slid open with a long, slow groan.

Bucky noted many, many guns being pointed at his head. But the Soldier was used to weapons being trained on him at the slightest sign of disobedience or remembrance. He stood there as dispassionately as he was able, letting his eyes roam critically over the HYDRA agents. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of a naked body, bound, and did not allow him to look more closely.

“Who is in charge here?” Bucky demanded, striding in and ignoring the nervous looks all round. He looked at the man the others seemed to be looking to. “You. What is your clearance level?”

“Level seven.” Said the man. He looked uncertain, but he did not look nervous or terrified like the rest. That probably meant that he had encountered the Soldier in person before. “Why have you come here, Soldier? For your captain?”

Bucky allowed himself to pause, as if puzzled, and look to Steve. There were several guns trained upon Steve as well, and he was heavily restrained. He also looked bruised and battered, and he did not look as alert as he should be. Bucky looked back at the agent in charge. “I am reporting in for debriefing and containment,” he repeated in the Soldier’s monotone, suddenly blank and more ready to be compliant after ostensibly having found someone who was in charge of him. “The assassination of target designation Captain America is no longer within my mission parameters. I received instructions via a junior agent that I was to report in for debrief and containment. This is the first active base in North America I have encountered.”

The agent in charge of the base seemed to relax. “Take him to the chair,” he said to two of the thugs pointing their guns at Bucky. Bucky allowed himself to be led to the chair quite docilely. The leader ambled to the control panel and seemed to know what he was doing as he fiddled with the numerous buttons and sliders. It was an early model, from the 70’s at least, according to the files Natasha had dumped. The leader of this rag tag band of misfits seemed to have used it before. That was good. The Chair was HYDRA’s best instrument in controlling and modifying the Soldier’s behaviour, and until that day on the Helicarriers, it had never failed. Anyone who had seen the Chair at work before had little reason to doubt its efficacy.

Bucky allowed his goggles and mask to be removed, and bit down on the ancient rubber mouthguard someone had dug out of a drawer nearby. The tiny metal chips embedded under his temples began to hum and buzz as the Chair powered up and the headpiece lowered around Bucky’s skull. The leader pulled a lever, and lightening filled Bucky’s vision. The agony was unbearable, and so was the terror. With the chips in his skull protecting his mind, Bucky did not even have the reprieve of forgetting his agony as he experienced it. He bit down hard on his mouthguard, and screamed and screamed and screamed.

When the lightning subsided, his ears were ringing and his jaw was sore, but he was mentally intact. He docilely allowed his mouthguard to be removed and his mask replaced, never acknowledging the grunt manhandling him. The Soldier saw the junior agents who tended to him as a mix of pit-crew and invisible servants, and ignored them like insects. His more complicated feelings were for people who had enough authority to talk directly to him. Bucky wanted to flinch away at the hands on his body, but he turned to stare at the leader instead.

“Ready to comply,” he said. The taste of gunpowder was cloyingly strong in his throat. There was also another smell, almost as strong, but his mind seemed to shy away from identifying it. Why did the room smell so strongly of gunpowder? The stockpile of ammunition should have been two rooms over. Had there been a gun fired recently? “What are my orders?” Lights danced in his vision, and Bucky had to force himself to look at the man in charge.

The leader of the group signed to his underlings that they should put their guns away, then looked at Bucky thoughtfully. It was clear he had no idea what to do with the Soldier. “I will contact the higher ups,” the man said at length. “There are no cryogenic facilities in this base, it was removed when the alphabet agencies went through our stuff.”

“I will standby for orders,” Bucky said, but allowed his posture to relax. The Soldier always had an instinctive grasp upon who did and who did not have authority over him.

“Alright boys,” said the leader to his men. “Go back to what you were doing. Soldier, it’s always reassuring to have you join us. We’re glad you could make it to the party.”

Bucky looked to Steve, tilting his head as if in puzzlement. The fear in his throat climbed up and threatened to exit his mouth as a scream or a snarl. His fury and terror whited out his vision for a moment before he could get himself under control and shove it all away, out of his mind and into his body where his emotions could live without endangering his tenuous grasp of the Soldier’s dead-eyed calm.

It had been obvious that they had been hurting Steve from the brief glace Bucky had gotten as he came in, but it was now even more obvious what he had interrupted with his arrival. Steve squirmed away from the hands on his body, pinching at sore spots and caressing his bruises. Bucky swallowed and turned his face to the leader. “Interrogations of prisoners take place in designated rooms,” he said, as if he was disapproving of a breach of protocol. “These rooms are not suitable for containing a prisoner.”

“They are suitable for containing a supersoldier,” the leader said baldly, obviously not expecting the Soldier to understand. “And we are not interrogating him. We’re throwing a party.”

Bucky said nothing. He remembered how much grunts used to have his expense in the name of “parties”. But the Soldier would not. He had been wiped clean. He nodded in understanding

The leader looked at him with a speculative gleam in his eyes. “Come closer, Soldier,” he said. “Let’s help the boys out.”

Bucky wanted to give up the charade and snap the man’s slimy little neck, but there were still two of his men standing on either side of Bucky, and Steve was bound and surrounded. Instead, Bucky allowed himself to sound bored and slightly annoyed when he replied, “this is not within my skillset.”

The leader laughed, and the malicious sound of it made Bucky’s hair stand on end. “Oh, it’s doesn’t require any specialized skill,” he reassured Bucky. “Boys, why don’t you show the Soldier how it’s done?”

One of the thugs had broken out a box of fireworks, and Bucky suddenly understood why the room smelt so strongly of gunpowder. It was a variety box, with lurid colors on the packaging and several kinds of fireworks. One thug took out a box of sparklers, and another grabbed a handful of rockets. Steve’s legs were spread, and he was hard. Bucky flinched at the sight of come covering his ass and running out of his hole.

Bucky clenched his teeth and tried to regulate his breathing and posture. He could not give himself away. He had to make sure that Steve had not been reprogrammed into a second Winter Soldier before he broken him out. It would be impossible for him to rescue Steve if Steve fought him. He stood with an affectation of relaxation, and forced himself to tuck his hands into his pockets and look on.

Steve made a sound of pain as the thin metal wire on the handle end of a sparkler probed unceremoniously into his urethra. It was obvious he tried to swallow the sound, but the gag in his mouth prevented him from successfully staying silent. The skin on his cock looked tender and inflamed, and there were bruises around his groin area. It was clear that this was the latest in a lone line of abuses that his genitals had been subjected too. But Steve focused for long enough to glare at the man inserting the makeshift sound. But the coated body of a sparkler is rough and much thicker than the wire centre, and Steve’s face screwed up as the intrusion in his urethra thickened, and rasped like sandpaper against his tender flesh. He let out a soft groan of misery. The sparkler was not inserted all the way down, but instead only lodged halfway inside of Steve. Steve seemed to relax after the painful sound inside his dick stopped moving, but Bucky saw with cold horror the leader of the HYDRA goons produce a lighter from his pocket and throw it. The goon with the sparklers caught the lighter and grinned. Steve flinched as his tormentor flicked the lid of the lighter open and closed, as if to tease him. Bucky forced himself to remain impassive. The leader was studying Bucky’s reactions out of the corner of his eye. It was clear he didn’t trust Bucky all the way. Perhaps he had learned some wariness from hearing about Bucky’s defection after the Helicarriers and the incident with the red book.

Bucky forced himself to stay relaxed as he looked on, helpless. He counted his breathing, and swallowed down his screaming terror every time it reared up and threatened to overwhelm him. Steve was counting on him. But Steve was also trying to squirm away from the man with the lighter despite his bonds. Bucky felt lightheaded and distant as he saw, almost in slow motion, the man hold the lighter to the tip of the sparkler, and the firework caught alight.

Steve made a mangled sound of terror as he flinched and squirmed, then started crying out in earnest when the sparks began flying and landed in tiny pinpricks of burning pain across his torso, groin and thighs. Bucky wanted to surge forwards and crush the firework in his metal fist, but the sly look the leader was shooting him reminded him of his perilous situation. Steve was flinching from the pain, but he was also doing his best to hold himself still, out of the fear of making the sound slide deeper inside him if he thrashed too hard. As Steve’s garbled noises of agony escaped his gagged mouth, Bucky tasted blood in his mouth. Ah. He had bitten too hard on his tongue and drawn blood. The sparkler burnt closer and closer to the tip of Steve’s dick, and Bucky had to force himself to not look away. Steve could recover from burns like that. Bucky could, and his healing factor was not nearly as strong as Steve’s. As the sparkler burnt down almost inside Steve, his tormentor finally took pity and pulled out the still lit firework. Steve screeched as it was torn out of him, the rough tug like being scoured with sandpaper. His tormentor laughed when he held the still lit sparkler to Steve’s face and he flinched away in fear.

Bucky’s heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. He was so close to snapping and just gunning them all down, never mind the risk to Steve. He pulled on his fear and hoped that it would paralyse him, but instead it just fed his anger. Bucky breathed in and out slowly, and touched his hand to the knife concealed on his thigh. He just had to wait for the right moment. He would kill them all.

 

The leader seemed to be satisfied that Bucky had not outwardly flinched or reacted to Steve being hurt. The Soldier had been pathologically incapable of deception, and it appeared that he thought an unbrainwashed Bucky would be the same.

“It’s his birthday, you know,” the leader explained casually, now that he was assured of Bucky’s loyalties. “That’s what gave us the idea for this…exercise. We have cake even. Petersen, go get the Soldier a slice.”

“Rogers’ date of birth is Forth July, 1918,” Bucky said woodenly. He could think of no other reply. He ignored the man cutting a slice from a shape decorated to look like Steve’s shield. It was clear from how little of the cake was left that they had been “celebrating” for some time.

“Yes! Yes precisely,” the leader replied. “You might not know, but that is also the day they celebrate the founding of America. Quite a lucky coincidence, really.”

Bucky said nothing. When Petersen presented him with a paper plate, Bucky stared him down until the man quailed and shoved the slice of cake at the nearest flat surface and fled.

The man with the sparkler had discarded the spent firework. He threw to the lighter to one of the others, and amused himself by pulling on Steve’s tender, hurt cock in a gentle and sadistic parody of a handjob. He occupied his other hand with pressing on the tiny red dots the sparks had left on Steve’s skin. He was grinning. Steve was whimpering softly and trying to flinch away, but he was too securely bound. They must have given one of the special supersoldier aphrodisiacs, because he was still hard despite the pain. Bucky swallowed the blood and bile mingling in his mouth. Steve was twitching and shuddering now, and there was a red flush rising from what few patches of his skin that wasn’t mottle with bruises. He whined and wailed from behind his gag, and choked out a strangled moan as he came, his whole body tensing with the pain as his dick twitched weakly and shot out a few droplets of faintly pink cum.

As the leader’s attention on Bucky faltered and all in the room turned to look at Captain America being so humiliated, Bucky dropped a tiny round ball that rolled away and landed under the seat of the Soldier’s Chair.

The man with the sparkler retreated to wipe off his hand, satisfied, and another took his place. This man was picking out a rocket from the bunch he had grasped in his hand.

The leader of the squad picked up one of the cups littered around the room. “You wanna beer?” he said to Bucky, smirking to himself. “It’s a party. You should celebrate. Take a load off.”

“Alcohol interferes with mission performance,” Bucky said, trying to sound like he wasn’t about to rip the man’s head clean off.

“There won’t be a mission tonight,” the man replied smugly. “Come on, relax. Live a little. Petersen. Get the Soldier a drink.”

Petersen, who appeared to be the errand boy, rummaged around and produced a water glass and half filled it with a dusty bottle of whiskey that had probably been stashed in the base some time during the seventies.

Bucky accepted the glass silently, not bothering to stare down the errad boy because he was trying to keep an eye on the man with the rockets with his peripheral vision.

“So. You enjoying the fireworks?” the leader said, nodding towards the windows, through which were visible the numerous fireworks lighting up the skies for Independence Day.

Bucky glanced at Steve, who was twitching and whimpering as the dickhead with the rockets finally selected one and was working it in to Steve’s much abused asshole.

“Yes.” Bucky said, swallowing down the shards of glass in his throat.. “Fireworks mask the sound and scent of gunshots. They are useful.”

The leader smiled. “Well. Feel free to help yourself,” he said. “We did pick up a variety box. I’m sure Captain America would appreciate it.”

Bucky felt the vein in his left temple jump.

“Yes.” he said, as if he had accepted an order. He walked over to the table on which Steve laid. He leaned over Steve, and blinked out a quick pattern when no one but Steve could see his eyes hidden behind his curtain of hair. Steve looked dazed, but winked back after a moment. Bucky looked back at the leader. “Do I insert the firework into the prisoner?” He asked, as if unsure about the instructions he had received.

“Yeah,” said the leader, an eager look of anticipation rising on his face. “Just - shove it in his ass. Don’t worry, we’ve already loosened him up for you real good, it’ll definitely fit.”

Somehow, Bucky doubted that - these rockets weren’t exactly slim - but he nodded. He looked around. “Where is the lighter?” he asked.

The leader made a noise of incredulity, but then laughed. “Give him the lighter,” he said, and it was produced. Bucky tightened his grip on his glass of whiskey, and accepted the lighter with his other hand. He approached the guy with the rockets, insinuating himself between him and Steve under the pretense of looking at the fireworks in his hand. The HYDRA unit numbered six. The leader was by the window. One was guarding the door. One sat on the Soldier’s chair and was taking gulps of whiskey from the water glasses with a look of distaste on his face. The man with the sparklers was looking through the box of fireworks again. The man with the rockets was in front of Bucky where he could not get to Steve. The remaining man was on Bucky’s other side, leering and prodding at Steve.

Bucky pressed the pad of his metal thumb against the tip of his forefinger until he felt something crunch, and the man sitting on the Chair cried out as a spark of electricity shot out of the headpiece and almost fried his hair. Taking advantage of the moment of distraction, Bucky poured the alcohol on the man at his side and dropped the lit lighter on him, then pulled the rocked out of Steve and his pistol out of its holster in the same smooth motion. He fired off a shot to the man with the rockets, who dropped like a rock, then took out the guard by the door and the man with the sparklers. The man on fire was screaming and rolling around on the floor. The leader drew his gun and fired, but Bucky deflected the shot and fired back, hitting him in the shoulder and then in the gut. The man on the chair had recovered from his surprise, and was reaching for the semiautomatic on the console beside him. Bucky reached for the knife at the small of his back and threw it at the man in the same motion as he fired again at the leader, and both of them dropped to the floor with holes in their foreheads. The man on the floor had finally put out the fire on his clothes, but he was too weak from the pain to draw his gun in time. Bucky threw another knife, and watched as it buried itself in the man’s left eye socket. The man screamed, twitched, then soon went still.

Bucky froze for a moment, staring down at the bodies in case any of them moved. He took out another knife and went from body to body, slitting their throats for good measure. Then he tore the mask off his face as he rushed over to Steve to undo his bonds. They were adamantium and made to resist the strength of supersoldiers, but Bucky had enough experience being bound by them that he undid the locking mechanisms in a second. He pulled them off Steve one by one. He threw them to the side with some force, and each made a sizable dent in the walls. Steve looked at Bucky as he was being freed, but his eyes were still glazed.

“Hey, it’s me, it’s Buck. Are you alright?” Bucky modulated his voice to be as gentle and neutral as he could manage. It was still scratchy and far too flat to be passably human.

Steve frowned. “Y-yeah,” he said. He looked at Bucky, and thought for a moment before he gathered the faculties to slur out, “they put me through the Chair a lot. I r’member though. Shuri’s microchips work.”

They looked at each other, awkward and afraid. Bucky wanted to say something, but he wasn’t so good with comforting words anymore.

Steve inhaled deeply before looking away. Bucky retreated to the corner where the HYDRA thugs had stashed Steve’s gear, grateful for the excuse for at least a moment’s reprieve. He brought the clothes over in a pile, and set them down on the table beside Steve, who was beginning to try stand.

“Do you think you can dress?” Bucky said awkwardly, all too aware of how much he had hated being asked the same question by Steve when it was him being horribly unwell. Steve took a moment to process his question, then shook his head mutely with an unhappy and humiliated look upon his face. The he winced, obviously having paid for moving his head too quickly

Silently, Bucky produced the stack of red, white, and blue paper serviettes that had been stacked besides the cake and wiped Steve off, then knelt and helped him into his pants and shoes. Steve bore this manhandling with stoic indignity, and pushed himself off the table and stood as soon as his shoes were fastened. Bucky took up the T-shirt Steve had been kidnapped in next, and pulled it over Steve’s head, careful not to jostle his head. Steve got the arms into the sleeves himself, and Bucky pulled his hands back and hovered awkwardly as he watched Steve struggle.

They stared at each other for another long moment. There was something bitter and ugly beginning to stir behind Steve’s glazed eyes and concussed expression.

“Happy birthday to me, I guess,” Steve managed, rather bitterly. His face twisted.

“Steve,” said Bucky, trying to suppress his fear. He didn’t know what else to say. Steve looked at Bucky, and the ugly expression shifted into something neutral and distant as Steve clammed up.

“Let’s get out of here,” Bucky said. “We’re still wanted fugitives in America. I have a car out back.”

Steve said nothing, but allowed Bucky to draw his arm over his shoulder and support him with a hand on his back as they hobbled over to Bucky’s getaway vehicle. Bucky laid Steve across the back seat, to spare him from sitting on his sore ass, and got into the driver’s seat.

Steve passed out almost as soon as the base was out of sight. Bucky drove in stony silence all the way to the nearest safe house. Overhead, the fireworks were still blooming. Bucky tried to breathe shallowly as the scent of gunpowder filled his throat and lungs, but it was no use. The scent of burning chemicals lingered abound them no matter how much of the night air blew in through the open windows. Bucky swallowed down the urge to gag and pressed harder on the gas pedal.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my gf for holding my hand and encouraging me.
> 
> I'm not very active in the MCU these days but I'm at [buckybatnes](https://buckybatnes.tumblr.com) on Tumblr if anyone wants to chat or say hi! I'm always up for talking about a)angst and b)filth.


End file.
